Making Monuments: A-Z of Indoor Activities

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Are you excited?!? Today marks the first activity post in our Architecture and Engineering for Preschool series! To kick things off, I turned our neglected Mega Bloks into famous monuments even my toddler and preschooler can build.

Making Monuments

During my Art History for Preschool series last year, some of our favorite reference books were13 Artists and 13 Art Techniques Children Should Know. When I decided to explore architecture and engineering with the girls in our latest series, I was thrilled there was a similar book: 13 Buildings Children Should Know. I love this series because it provides a great introduction to the subject matter, featuring vivid images, and great historical details and context. I enjoy and get as much out of them as my kids do! In this case, the 13 famous monuments outlined were a great overview into our study of architecture.

Making Famous Monuments with Mega Bloks

To bring these historical buildings to life for the girls, I printed images of the 13 famous monuments depicted in the book, as well as a few of my personal favorites. Having grown up in San Antonio and lived in Chicago, I had to add the Alamo and Sears (now Willis) Tower to the mix.

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In addition to the Making Monuments printable, you will need a few basic supplies:

Cut out each image from the printable. Then, lay out Mega Bloks on top of the image to fully cover the building.

Next, add glue dots to your Mega Bloks and affix the building image to the Bloks.

Last, use an Xacto knife to cut your image along the lines of the Mega Bloks, creating your monument puzzle pieces. If you are using this in a classroom, I would also recommend putting clear tape over each piece once they are separated to increase durability.

Toddler Architectural Wonders

In an unusual turn of events, Lil’ M (age 2) was up from her nap before my preschooler and took the first crack at our Mega Bloks Monuments. She declared them to be “So cool!” and got to work disassembling, combining, and creating her own architectural wonders of the world.

Preschool Reconstruction

With Lil’ M fully engrossed, once Big M (age 4) woke up, we flipped through the pages of 13 Buildings Children Should Know. I was amazed that she recognized some of the buildings, like the Great Pyramid, from Bubble Guppies, and the Eiffel Tower, from scrapbook photos of my husband and my past travels. She was super impressed when I told her we had been to Neuschwanstein Castle too.

She immediately set to work putting the monuments back in order, using the book’s pictures as a reference point. The toughest one by far – Neuschwanstein!

Let’s Build Up!

Want more great construction ideas for kids? This activity (and it’s printable) are featured in my latest collaborative ebook: Up!It also includes 30 more STEM challenge ideas to transform your child’s block play into an endless, hands-on learning center. Download your ebook today and get more than 100 pages of printables to go alongside the activities included. Get yours today from the Playground Parkbench store.

A-Z of Indoor Activities

Today, I am representing the letter ‘M’ in the A-Z of Indoor Activities hosted by Crafty Kids at Home. Be sure to check out the entire series, which continues for the rest of January, featuring indoor fun from A to Z!

I was thrilled by both girls’ fascination and entertainment with our first activity in my Architecture and Engineering for Kids series. They played with the Monument Mega Bloks ALL afternoon, even playing nicely together (HUGE mommy win!), and as with most activities, even brought their favorite princesses into the mix.

If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out the rest of the series and come back every Wednesday for the next activity. Join us next week for an Architectural Scavenger Hunt! You can find all of these, as well as awesome favorites from around the web, on our STEM for Kids – Engineering board on Pinterest.

4 comments

Loved the name of your blog. This monument thing is so great and amazing. Even i am working on starting a lego series on my blog will definitely cover this.Thanks for inspiring 🙂
Richa
AllThatsMomhttp://allthatsmom.co.in

[…] definitely provided it! Last week in my Architecture and Engineering for Kids series, the girls Made Monuments with Mega Bloks, learning about the majesty of famous and historic architecture. This week, by exploring the […]